The Eternity Brigade (3 page)

“I won’t kid you. The chances are that when we revive you, it will be because there’s a war going on, and you’ll be in the thick of it. You’ve all been in combat. The army isn’t Santa Claus—you’ll be expected to earn those bonuses we give you. But—aside from the calculated risk of being frozen and revived—you won’t be asked to face anything you haven’t faced before.”

“All our knowledge will be out of date,” one man spoke up. “The army’s always coming up with new weapons. What if we wake up ten years from now and don’t even know how to fire the guns?”

“We’ve conducted a few technological projections, to the conclusion that weapons probably will not change beyond recognition in the next fifteen years. There will be improvements, certainly—lighter, better range, more accuracy, faster firing, perhaps laser beams instead of bullets—but basically you can expect a rifle will still feel and act like a rifle. You will each be put through a rigorous course in weapons of all sorts before being placed in suspended animation—part of the same course, incidentally, given to members of the Tactical Assault teams—in an attempt to so familiarize you with weapons of all description so that no matter what you’re handed you will quickly be able to use it proficiently. We can’t predict breakthroughs in new superweapons, of course, but we can make you all as versatile as possible.”

Captain Dukakis looked around the now-silent room, searching for further questioners. “Anyone else care to comment? No? Very well, then, let me just add a few final words. After I leave you, feel free to discuss the matter among yourselves—but
only
among yourselves. Remember the NDAs; no one who was not in this room during this discussion must be allowed to overhear any references to the project. If you don’t know the rest of the people around you—and the chances are you won’t—introduce yourselves and talk the matter over. It’s a serious decision; we realize that. You don’t have to make it today, either. You’ll have the next two weeks to think it over. If you decide to volunteer, or if you have further questions, you can reach me in Administration B-224 during normal business hours. If there’s anything urgent after hours, the guard at the front desk will know where to reach me. Dismissed.”

Captain Dukakis gathered up his notes and spent a few long seconds straightening the edges before putting the pages back into their folder. He then returned the folder neatly to his attaché case, clicked it smartly shut, turned, and walked out of the room without so much as a backward glance at the men he’d been addressing.

***

The silence lingered for perhaps five seconds after the captain had gone, and then burst with the rumble of two dozen separate conversations. The young man who’d been sitting next to Hawker now turned to him and said, “Well, at least part of his advice made sense; it is best if we introduce ourselves. I’m
David Green.
What’s your name?”

“Jerry Hawker. My friends call me Hawk.”

“Pleased to meet you, Hawk.” Green stuck out his hand and the two men shook solemnly. “Honestly, what did you think of the captain’s little spiel?”

Hawker shifted in his seat. “I really don’t know. It all sounds so fantastic.”

“Fantastic?” said a voice from behind them. “It’s far fuckin’ out, that’s what it is.”

Both soldiers turned to look at the man who spoke. He was seated directly behind them, a big man cut from the heroic mold—dark hair, blue eyes, with a square-cut jaw and a ruddy complexion. “I assume you intend to take them up on the offer, then?” Green asked.

“Hell, yes. You have any idea how much tail you can score with thirty-one thousand, seven hundred dollars and a three-week leave?”

“To tell you the truth, I hadn’t even begun to consider the possibilities. I don’t believe I caught your name.”

“Symington, Frank Symington. Everyone calls me Lucky.”

“Glad to meet you. I’m David Green, and this is my old friend, Jerry Hawker.”

Symington nodded at them and continued enthusiastically, “Yeah, I could really score with a bonus like that. Come into a place waving a wad of bills, they’ll do anything you want. After three weeks of getting drunk and chasing pussy, I’ll
feel
like sleeping fifteen years.”

“Now that’s the part I was giving the most thought to,” Green said.

“Listen, I once crawled through a mine field dragging two wounded officers behind me. This? Nothing to it!” Symington dismissed all worries with a casual wave of his hand. “You saw the video. Nobody got hurt. They wouldn’t
let
us get hurt. They need us—that’s why they’re freezing us in the first place, remember? They don’t want us dead; just think how embarrassing that would be.”

“Yeah, I’d blush all through the funeral.”

“I mean for them. This thing is secret now, but nothing stays secret forever. If they let us die, their asses’ll be in a sling when Congress finds out. They don’t dare let anything happen to us—and I’m not going to let that get in the way of my three-week leave and that bonus.”

“Shit, man, you are a goof.” The new speakers was a short, stocky black man with a scowl engraved on his face and a chip permanently soldered to his shoulder. “You really believe that pudding they’re dishing us about freezing and thawing? They’re handing you fairy tales, man. You think the army’s gonna give you some bonus just for sleeping? They’re gonna take it out of your hide one way or another, you gotta know that.”

“Actually, the program does make sense, in a way,” Green spoke up hesitantly.

“Oh, yeah?” The black man turned to him. “What kind of sense?”

“I’ve read about similar programs. People have been freezing themselves for years now. Mostly it’s people who are dying of some disease. They have themselves put into suspended animation until doctors find a cure. I’ve often thought they were being awfully trusting. What if the people in the future don’t
want
to revive them? But I don’t suppose they have any other choice. We do.”

“Nobody’s putting my ass on ice,” the black man said firmly.

Symington was not ready to concede his argument, though. “Look—say, what is your name, anyway?”

The black looked at him distrustingly. “Thaddeus Connors.”

“Well look, Connors, weren’t you listening? Didn’t you see the video? They know what they’re doing.”

Connors snorted. “I heard what the man
said
. That don’t make it true. Fuck, if I believed everything a captain told me, I’d be buzzard shit by now. Ain’t you learned yet, you don’t volunteer for nothing?”

“Apparently none of us have learned that lesson,” Green interrupted. “Dukakis said we all re-upped. I’d say that shows terminal stupidity on all our parts.”

Connors glared at him, his hands balling into fists. “Who you calling stupid?”

Green self-consciously scratched the bridge of his nose. “Me,” he said quietly. “And him. And him. And you. Everyone in this room. Can you blame the army for thinking we’re dumb enough to sign up for this gig, too?”

“I’m telling you guys, it’s no sweat,” Symington insisted, taking some of the heat away from Green. “After you’ve run straight at a machine gun nest a couple of times, you stop worrying. What have you got waiting for you when you get out of the army? Me, my dad drove a rig, I always figured I’d end up the same. If I take this instead, I’m set for life. Even blowing the whole bonus on leave, we still get paid while we sleep. If we’re out more than five years, that’s a tidy sum. I could invest it, or go to college on some GI grant and get a
real
job.” He looked pointedly at Connors. “Couldn’t you use that kind of money?”

“
Don’t matter what kind of money a nigger’s got,” Connors said. “He’s still a nigger.”

“He doesn’t have to carry it around on a big sign like you do,” Green commented.

“I don’t kiss no white ass.”

“Nobody asked you to.”

“Sure, you fuckers go ahead and fight if you want,” Symington said. “Bash your brains out right here in this room, save the army the trouble. Me, I see the chance of a lifetime, and I’m damn well going to take it.”

The discussion went on for another fifteen minutes. Hawker stayed silently in the background. None of the others asked for his opinion on the matter, yet all considered him a part of the group. Connors was constantly pushing both Symington and Green, as though hoping to start a fight, but neither man exactly obliged him. Eventually the black man gave up in disgust and walked away, leaving the other three standing by their seats.

“Weird guy,” Symington said, shaking his head. “A loser from the word ‘go.’ You can smell it on him.”

“Not like you, eh?” Green said.

“Head on.” Symington’s smile would have dazzled a searchlight. “They don’t call me ‘Lucky’ for nothing.”

“And you really intend to go through with this?”

“Just put the paper in front of me and let me sign away. It can’t be any worse than being pinned down in a swamp for three days, can it? We’ll be rich when we get out. Come on, what do you say? Give me a couple of friendly faces to go into the tank with.”

Green hesitated. “I wish I could say yes, but I’ve never been that impulsive. I need more time to think about it. How about you, Hawk?”

Hawker had settled into the comfortable position of observer, and Green’s question unexpectedly dragged him into the conversation. “Uh, I don’t know. I need time to think.”

Symington winked at them. “You’re both in, I can see it. You just have to convince yourselves. You don’t need any more bullshitting from me.” He slapped Green jovially on the back. “I’m gonna go get me a quick thirty-two thousand bucks. See you guys in the deep freeze.”

Green watched him go, then turned to Hawker. “You know,” he said, “he may be the first guy I’ve met, in the army or out of it, who is exactly what he appears to be. No pretensions, no frills. He knows what he wants, and he’s not ashamed to admit it.”

“Do you think he’s right?” Hawker asked. “I mean, about us going in after all?”

“I don’t know.” Green chewed thoughtfully on his thumbnail. “There are certainly plenty of reasons not to, and I can’t think of a single convincing argument in favor of volunteering. But logic may have nothing to do with it. Each of us is a lifetime’s result of forces we can barely comprehend. If we’re pushed too hard, we can end up doing the strangest things.”

He sat down and stared silently out into space. Hawker stood by for several minutes, but Green was completely lost in thought. At last Hawker turned and, without saying good-bye, walked away. Green didn’t even notice.

***

Hawker was seldom bothered by insomnia, but that night he had trouble sleeping. He could not get the ideas out of his mind. As Symington had said, what was there for him outside the army? Hawker had always been the quiet one, never making friends easily. He’d gone straight from high school into the army, and once in uniform and past Basic he went straight into combat. His father had died when he was sixteen, and his mother died while he was fighting in Africa. His sister had married a men’s wear salesman, and already had one kid. There was no one to take him in. If he left the army, he’d be completely on his own.

Hawker didn’t like being alone. It frightened him—almost as much as making friends frightened him. The army wasn’t the same as friends, it was more like family. You didn’t have to like family, but at least it was always there, and you knew you always belonged.

He didn’t have to volunteer for the experiment. He could go career in the normal way, maybe serve out the rest of his life in the army and wind up as a sergeant in charge of some motor pool. It was a simple life, unpretentious—but Hawker had never been a man for pretension.  He could make the army his life, surrender himself to it and let it make all the decisions for him. That thought warmed him somewhat. The army would be a snug nest in which to hide from all the loneliness of the outside world.

But the initial glow faded quickly. Now that the war was over, the mood of the country was changing. All the newscasters were talking about it. Moves were afoot to cut the military budget once more, to reduce the size of the standing army. The service could no longer afford to take in anyone just because he was a warm body; a man had to prove himself to be of longtime worth before the army would accept him on a career basis. He’d already heard of men opting to re-enlist and being told the army had no place for them. What if that happened to him? It would be the ultimate rejection, his newly adopted family booting him out of the house. What would he do then? Where would he go?

Of course, the army had already made its preference known. They
did
want him—but in a way that scared him, for reasons he could not even have begun to explain.

Oddly enough, he wasn’t afraid of the freezing process itself; he had the simple faith in technology that came from knowing nothing about it. What frightened him the most was what he would find when he
did
wake up. The world would still be there. What would he have gained? How long could he keep running away?

Of course, Captain Dukakis had said there’d probably be a war going on when he was revived, and he’d be expected to fight in it. There was the chance he might be killed